“It was good to see you, Johnny.” Brianna hugs the bad boy tighter to her frame, her emerald greens still piercing at Lon’s steel blues. “You’re right. This really isn’t my scene. I should be going.”
“You can’t leave,” Johnny replies with a smoldering grin. “You’re just in time for spin the bottle.” Ever the dutiful antagonist, he takes great pleasure in stirring the pot.
Having run out of
natty light
cans, Johnny happens to have a long-neck bottle in his free hand, the one that is not clutched around Brianna’s waist. He tips the bottle to his lips, chugging its remainder before laying it in the center of the coffee table.
Brianna gives him a less than impressed look, a non-verbal innuendo that she has no intentions of hanging around to participate in the juvenile pastime.
Chi O One picks up on Brianna’s prudish attitude, hastily eyeing her down per Lon’s forced disinterest in the jolie blonde. “It’s okay,
goody-goody.
You don’t have to play. That betters our odds.” Chi O One looks at her challengingly, pulling Lon’s thickset arm more firmly around her shoulder.
Recognizing she is the last person standing around the coffee table as a swarm of attentively game party-goers have gathered, settling on their knees in an ill-formed circle, Brianna gives in to Johnny’s prodding hand on her pant leg. As she kneels down aside him, her eyes keep those of the envious Chi O. In a direly controlled tone, she responds.
“Don’t worry,
easy,”
Brianna quips of the Chi O’s liberal bedding practice, “I’ll be sure not to land on the sour apple of your affection’s eye.” Her glance darts to a visibly sullen Lon.
Johnny picks the bottle up off the table, handing it to Brianna. “Newbie goes first,” he solicits with a cantankerous wink.
Brianna inhales deeply, cursing her ego for its fault in her participation. Looking around the circle, she scrutinizes the eager youthful faces, considering with whom she could actually carry out the art of sucking face should the tip of her bottle land on them. The obvious choice being the dark-haired Adonis sitting across from her; however, given his crappy attitude, she wouldn’t kiss him now if he begged her.
“Ah, what the hell,” she mutters. Twisting her hand clockwise, she lets go of the spinning bottle, reluctantly giving in to fate.
Brianna watches the brown tinted glass whirling about the table, her palms growing sweaty with the thought of swapping spit with a complete stranger. Johnny rubs his hands together, hopeful in willing the tip of the bottle in his direction. Lon follows the twelve-ounce cylinder with his eyes, the sound more impending as it slowly grates off the wooden coffee table, coming to a stop.
“Oh, thank God,” Brianna whispers, relieved at its candidate.
Johnny releases a triumphant howl, the tip of the bottle affirmatively pointing at him. “Beginner’s luck,” he boasts to Brianna, the idea that she should be so fortunate as to escape to a hidden closet with him.
“Fuckin’ Vito,” a male participant sputters, disappointed. “I swear he rigs those damn bottles,” the frat brother continues, making note that Johnny always lands a treasure every time they play.
Apparently the tranquil Mary Jane having met her match in the form of one jolie blonde, Lon’s blasé attitude grows engaged and fully pricked. He stands from the couch, grabbing up the bottle from the center of the coffee table. Winging it across the room, he pulls Brianna from her kneeling position aside Johnny.
“Hey man,” Johnny intercedes, jumping up.
Lon does not respond or justify his actions. He simply pulls Brianna from the room and up the stairs.
“Vito is so dissed!” an exuberant frat brother takes great pleasure in announcing. “Castille said ‘Not in my house,’” he quotes, wagging his finger, likening Lon’s actions to famed NBA’er and four-time defensive player of the year Dikembe Mutombo.
“Ah ha ha ha,” a round of insults and laughter ensues amongst the rowdy crowd.
Johnny plays it off, detachment much more enticing to him than genuine discontent. Looking around the circle at the remaining female participants, he provokes, “Who’s gonna be the lucky girl?” Finishing off another bottle of
natty light,
he offers it up to Chi O One and Two, fully reviving their dampened spirits at the removal of Lon from the game.
Upstairs, in Lon’s bedroom, the music and loud chatter from the floor below seems only a distant rumble. He pulls Brianna inside his room, closing the door behind them. Pacing his carpet, he runs his fingers through his thick dark hair, his hand stopping at the nape of his neck, roughly pulsating the muscle beneath.
Brianna watches him, the action causing the bicep in his arm to bulge pronounced. Her back pressed snugly to door, she wonders how he grew more handsome, the thought impossible. A lone lamp burning dimly accentuates his silhouette. His once lean and athletic form now hulking and completely filled out, his abs dually matching his squared jaw—chiseled. Her eyes cannot help but notice the alluring V-shape of his waistline as the two defining oblique muscle fibers disappear beneath the lucky confines of his jeans.
Last she saw him, Alonzo Castille
Jr.,
the suffix most fitting the adolescent boyish image, completely contrasting to the man who stands before her now. The thought brings to mind her own biological changes over the past few years. Her responsiveness to him has undoubtedly surpassed naïve curiosity, having progressed to full on mature desire.
“What are you doing here?” Lon questions, his tone matching his physical form, completely shaken.
“Uh,” Brianna expels, not exactly the greeting she had hoped for. “No, ‘Hi, how are you? It’s good to see you?’” She rattles off the usual interchange between friends who haven’t encountered each other in some time.
Alone with her in the still, shadowy confines of his room, Lon’s disinterested charade is forced to an end. He walks to her unable to further tolerate the distance between. Her five-inch stilettos giving her a boost in equally matching his six-foot frame, their faces—foreheads, eyes, chins and most notably lips—are level.
Brianna moans with the contact of his arm around her bare middle, pulling her abdomen tight against his. His free hand familiarly finds its way to her golden hair, locking firmly about the base of her neck, his thumb tracing her full parted mouth. His steel blues lament in their wanton communication with her emerald greens. His thick, dark, curly lashes press together as his greedy lips replace his thumb.
He kisses her gently at first, the way he used to, just his lips. Forfeiting his graduated
Jr.
status, he skillfully tastes her now with his tongue. The initial sweetness enough to prompt his appetite, he drives the tip further, his mouth and lips claiming hers as his own, a regular homecoming.
An anguished moan escapes Brianna, one he keenly sympathizes with—a craving left unfulfilled for the past three years. His jeans constricting an equally hungry and unsated desire below, Lon mindfully pulls his mouth away. His bottom lip drenched in her taste, his beefy chest clashes against hers, alternately soft and feminine in its bountiful form.
“Hi. How’ve you been?” he whispers, his forehead coming to rest on hers.
“Miserable,” she pants. Her unsteady hands trace the sides of his face, reckoning her suspicion that she may be dreaming, again.
“About as good as me, huh?” he admits, her departure from his life having left him with a most barren feeling. Dropping his face to her neck, fully breathing her in, he considers her scent as vital as oxygen to his survival. His strong arms firmly encircle her waist, lifting her strappy stilettos from the floor.
Brianna helps him out, wrapping her legs around his hips. Her arms autonomic in their muscle memory, assume their long lost position clinging tightly about his broad shoulders. Her face nuzzled in the crook of his neck, the fresh, clean baby powder scent delivers her to her youth and the first time she ever experienced the nerve-racking yet highly exhilarating sensation of being so close to a boy, this boy.
The warmth of his skin, the shelter of his embrace, the familiarity of his form connects her once again to an innocent vulnerability. Her learned will not to cry grows painfully feeble given the circumstances.
Lon props them upon his bed until their weight is supported by his back against the wall. A trickle of moisture runs down the side of his neck cluing him in to Brianna’s emotion. Her tears providing sweet vindication that she still considers him a soft place to fall.
“I gotcha, baby,” he soothes, holding her trembling torso ever so tightly to his.
“I’m sorry,” she whispers. “This isn’t exactly the way I imagined our reunion.” Her words are broken up by her fluttering abdomen as the waterworks continue to fall. “You’d think I would’ve outgrown crying on your shoulder by now.”
“I wouldn’t want it any other way.” He detests the idea of her seeking solace in any arms other than his, her body surely sculpted and a perfect fit for the hunky limbs.
“Do you know how many nights I lie awake wishing I could feel you next to me, around me?” she asks, considering the torturous sleep deprivation.
“Tell me,” he indulges. His chin calmly resting atop her head, he waits, wanting—needing to hear her elaborate.
“We spent most of our natural lives together,” Brianna reminisces of their childhood. “When my grandparents took me away…from you…it felt like when my parents died. Nobody told me it was going to hurt all over again.” She presses her wet cheek tighter to his chest, the cadence of his heartbeat still as soothing as when it was her usual resting place in stargazing the rural backwoods of New Orleans.
“I feel it, too, Brie,” he whispers, stroking his fingers through her hair, taking into account the emptiness he felt without her constant presence. “It’s like we’re tethered or something.”
“Tethered?” she asks. Gaining control of her emotions, her hand busies itself, briskly wiping away traces of moisture from her face.
“You know, attached. Like when you make rope. You tether the fibers together. All the fibers make the rope whole,” he explains.
She exhales, the heat generating from their
tethered
forms causing her skin to grow flushed against his. Pulling up off his chest, her back rests against his bent up knees, her legs still draped around his waist. She can’t help but run her fingers through his hair, the spiky, disheveled wave much different from his high and tight trim as a teenager, clearly adding to his casual allure.
“It’s different, huh?” his eyes question her opinion.
“It’s sexy.” Her lips curl up at the ends. “You’re sexy. My God, look at you.” Her thoughts analogous to her philandering gaze as she takes him in. Even in his relaxed form, his sinewy body ripples, convex and concave in all the right places. Three years, the difference between a boy and a man.
Lon lets his eyes return the compliment, slowly scanning her taut, narrow waist as he peruses upward stalling momentarily on the blooming swell just under her chin. Finally settling on her shoulders where her neutral blonde hair lies, he recalls that the last time he saw her it was short and auburn, a bold makeover in lieu of her parents’ death.
“I let it grow out,” she says, her hand subconsciously touching the strands. “I know you always liked it that way.”
“I think you know by now, I’d like you with rainbow colored hair.” His finger laced around a belt loop of her leather pants, he gives it an affectionate tug.
Brianna bites her bottom lip between her teeth, quelling a satisfied smile. “How did you end up here? What are you studying? And I never figured you for a frat boy,” she attempts to play catch-up now that she can, having released her initial emotion to seeing him.
“I was fortunate enough to get a scholarship. LSU has a great mechanical engineering program. My guidance counselor said fraternities always look good on job resumes. And it’s more affordable than getting my own apartment,” he adds, dutifully checking off her twenty questions. “I hear you’re taking up law.” As soon as the words slip off his tongue, he wishes he could take them back considering the source of the information—ETNA’s creepy hematologist Dr. Godfrey.
“Yes. I am. And where did you hear that?” Her head cocks to the side, formulating the fact that she and Lon have had no contact over the past three years per her grandparents’ insistence.
“Doesn’t matter where I heard it,” he dismisses with a yawn, the aftereffects of Mary Jane surfacing in his heavy eyes.
In her incessant gazing at him and his room, she notices the brown paper bag on his nightstand, a half smoked roach lying beside it. “When did you start doing that?”
He pushes the remnants off the stand and into the open drawer beneath, his hand tapping it shut. “Played around with it a bit in high school. After you left. It’s become a regular habit,” he admits, shrugging unabashedly. “I like it. The way it makes me feel.”
“Numb?” She reads between the lines, having contemplated such chemically induced desensitization herself.
“Yeah. You ever tried it?” he asks, already knowing the answer.
She doesn’t confirm or deny. Her eyes, still trailing his muscular terrain, attempt to burn the image into her mind should this be a one-time reunion. His arm resting on the bed, the dim lamp on the nightstand provides just enough light that she notices the tiny bruise at the inside of the crook in his elbow. She squints further, defining a little red dot at the center of the bruise, indicative of a needle mark.
“What’s this?” she asks, concerned, her fingers gently inspecting his flesh.
Lon pulls his arm away from her, his ETNA testing not at all anything he ever plans to willfully share with her.
“What else are you doing?” Brianna insinuates more advantageous extracurricular drugs, her emerald greens afflicted and begging of his opposition.
“Nothing. It was just some routine physical, that’s all.” Another reminder of the not-so-routine ETNA laboratories, he pushes her up off of him. Unsure of what twisted brainstorm their union may pull from Dr. Shaw and his mad scientist Dr. Godfrey, Lon is assured that the safest place for her to be is anywhere but in his company. “You shouldn’t be here.” He stands from his bed, establishing a safe distance between them.